The Jupiter Plague

“We want to open that outer door again since we should be getting out of here soon. Is that junction box in the line of fire?”

“I don’t think so, sir. Not if you were to stay flat on the floor until you got to it, but I think if you stood up you could be seen from outside.”

“Tell me what has to be done, will you, Stanley,” Sam said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I would love to,” the engineer said, biting his teeth together hard to control their growing tendency to chatter, “but it would take too long and you would take too long doing it and — I’m the one who has to do it so let me get going before my nerve fails completely. Just pay this wire out to me as I go. And wish me luck.”

He dropped flat at the open inner door, hesitated just a moment, then crawled through the opening. Nothing happened as he made his way around the wall to the open junction box, nor did he draw any attention even when he had to stand up to connect the wires. But on the return journey he must have been seen because bullets drummed on the outer door and the hull and some found the tiny opening and ricocheted around the air lock. Yasumura dived through into the hall and lay there exhausted but unharmed.

“Good work,” the general said. “Now let’s open the outer door and see how those gun-happy police react.”

As soon as he was able to stand, the engineer made the connections to the power pack and closed the circuit. The circuit breakers had cooled off and automatically reset themselves: the motor whined and the outer door began to open slowly.

A hail of bullets was the first reaction, but they were well out of the line of fire.

“Shaky trigger fingers,” the general said contemptuously. “I wonder if they have any idea of what they hope to accomplish by this.”

Others must have shared his opinion because the fire broke off suddenly and was replaced by an echoing silence. Almost fifteen minutes passed before someone shouted from outside.

“General Burke, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you all right,” Burke bellowed back, “but I can’t see you. Are those nervous policemen going to shoot me if I enter the air lock?”

“No, sir… we have orders not to.”

If the general was concerned he did not show it. He straightened his beret, flicked some of the dried mud from his coveralls and strode forward to the rim of the air lock, standing straight and unmoving in the glare from the lights that flooded in.

“Now what is it?” he called down. “And turn those lights down — are you trying to blind me?” There were some muffled commands and two of the lights went out.

“We have received orders that you are to be allowed to leave the ship.” The speaker came for-ward, a grizzled police captain.

“I’ll want transportation. A copter.”

“We have one here—”

“Warm it up. And what happened to my sergeant?”

“If you mean the one who was firing at us, he’s dead.”

The general turned around without another word and stamped inside. “Let’s go before they change their minds.” He had the fixed, unhappy look that soldiers get who have seen too many friends die.

“You won’t need me any more,” Yasumura said. “So if you don’t mind I’ll stay here and take a look at the ship’s log and have some chitchat with that overweight passenger.”

“Yes, of course,” the general said. “Thank you for the aid…”

“Wrong way around, General, I’m the one who should be thanking you for getting me back into the ship.”

A service lift truck was backed up to the “Pericles” and its platform raised to the level of the air lock. They stepped out onto it, carrying the wounded lieutenant between them, and the operator swung it around in an arc and dropped it to ground level; a few yards away was a copter with its blades slowly turning. They ignored the grim-faced and heavily armed policemen who stood around watching them. Sam held the capsule tightly in his free hand as they helped Haber into the copter and laid him down gently across the rear row of seats.

“Bellevue Hospital and make it flat out,” Sam said, dropping into the seat next to the police pilot. “Get onto the tower and tell them to clear you right through, to divert all other traffic. We’re going straight to the Bellevue landing pad and set down at maximum. Understood?”

“On the way.”

He hit the throttle open and the copter screamed and clawed its way into the sky.